The BBC and the Daily Mail have reached an agreement regarding the TV and radio coverage of the Glastonbury Festival at the end of the month. Although the BBC does not accept direct sponsorship, it is understood that a ‘product placement’ arrangement is in place, similar to the existing one between BBC News and outdoor clothing company North Face. In return, the BBC will deliberately provoke Daily Mail readers into a state of apoplexy, prompting a bumper crop of correspondence for the letters page.

The BBC have already announced that all of the nearby luxury hotels have been block-booked to allow hundreds of staff to attend the four day event at Worthy Farm, triggering an angry response from several of its license-paying Daily Mail readers. Further announcements regarding Songs of Praise and The Antiques Roadshow being displaced from the screens in favour of blanket Glastonbury programming across multiple channels are expected to follow.

But it is the coverage of the festival itself that is expected to inflame the disgust and outrage of the Daily Mail readership to the greatest extent. Presented by scruffy youngsters who gabble nonsensically, the programmes will be focussing on outrageously loud, tuneless, so-called music, groups of drunken teenagers cavorting in muddy fields and the late-night hedonism that has long been associated with Glastonbury. At least one band is expected to encourage promiscuity and immorality with a song called Let’s Spend the Night Together.

A BBC spokesman explained that there were also plans to follow a balding, middle-aged, overweight man around the Festival, dressed only in a pink tutu, carrying a pink fairy wand in one hand and a flagon of Somerset scrumpy in the other. “It’s sure to prompt a mailbag full of letters when he drunkenly accepts a spliff up by the Stone Circle," he said. "But we haven’t yet decided which of our Radio 2 presenters will play the role."